Welcome. I’m writing to you from the near future. While you’re celebrating Memorial Day, we’re about to celebrate the Fourth of July. At least, that’s how it feels. Weather-wise, I report to you from the future.
We have been hitting 95 to 98 degrees in the shade, every day. We have been having nada droppa rain, every day and with not so much as a hint of any in the foreseeable forecast. We have been whipped by a hot, dry, 20-mile-per-hour southern gale, every day.
As a result, much of each day consists of finding the plants closest to shriveling from lack of water, and then preventing that from happening. I have to get water on the gardens as soon as the sun’s up, before the winds begin. By the end of the day, well-soaked raised beds are bone dry. This is what usually happens around here in July, but the current weather pattern actually took hold in late April, and there’s been but one 3/4-inch shower since early March. Usually our Mays provide 10-15 inches of rain.
I don’t mean to complain. Not all is amiss. The tomato plants that I was able to get in the ground early have adopted and are producing well. It appears I may have another three or four weeks worth of harvesting at least. And the fig trees have provided the best early crop we’ve ever had, with the promise that the main crop will be a great one. And I didn’t see my first mosquito of the year until just a couple of days ago. That’s never happened before and usually we would’ve been aswarm back in March. The lack of water has punished the bad insects. Last year’s stinkbug plague is but a nasty memory. Bosco the Wonder Dog is unscathed by fleas. The Giant Texas White-Headed Roach has been nearly absent. All these are good things.
Otherwise, the plants are behaving as if it really were July. Most of the hibiscus suddenly stopped producing flowers, for instance, while the plumeria are so happy for the extra heat that they’ve picked up the slack in the blooming department.
We’re surviving, not thriving. Economics-wise, gains we’ve made through eating our own fruit and vegetables have been more than offset by a very noticeable increase in the price of the stuff we still have to buy from the grocery stores. I doubt I’ll be able to change that trend unless I find a way to add a small flock of chickens to our asset base, and I don’t see that happening for at least a few years.
Farmers up north, where my sister lives, still haven’t been able to plant crops because their fields are soaked and the rain won’t stop. Farmers down here either haven’t planted or nothing came up because the rain took a vacation. They’re living on crop insurance, and that insurance will be more expensive next time around. I try not to, but worry that this year’s weather is more than an anomaly, and that it’s just the tip of the iceberg (heh) of climate change from the constant global burning of fossil fuels.
I have plans to improve my primitive water collection system and intend to move toward drip irrigation. It’s not much, but who am I to blow against the wind? Our governor himself decreed a statewide Weekend of Rain Prayers a few weeks ago, and that didn’t work either.
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I hear you. We’ve had 1.21″ all year. Last year we were at about 8″ by now. The wind is ridiculous. I heard better weather may be on the way. You’ll get monsoon from the gulf where you’re at?